Vegan Meats

Jane's having a tougher time than I am regarding the transition to vegan "meats." We laugh that she has more discerning taste buds than I do, but in reality, she ate meat longer than I did. We've been "semi-vegetarians" for years, eating only chicken and fish. But every once in a while Jane would have a cheeseburger, or pork chop, especially at her family gatherings. In any event, she held off a bit before trying vegan meat alternatives thinking that the more time she had between "real" meat and vegan meat, the more likely she was to accept it.

She's tried wheat gluten versions of meat at some of the vegan restaurants we've been too. I love them all. She's found them to be hit or miss.

Since it's been brutally hot lately, we've been having salad and sandwiches for dinner a lot. Jane has been pleasantly surprised with both the Yves Vegan Salami and the Vegan Meat (which we think resembles bologna).

We're still holding off on trying the vegan cheeses, although we have some in our fridge (no casein!). Cheese is one of the harder non-vegan things for us to let go of. There's a recipe in one of our vegan cookbooks that claims to have a really good cheddar cheese alternative from scratch, but we're both skeptical. I'll let you know when we've worked up the courage to try that one!

Lane

Too Hot, Baby

It's been too hot to crack open the vegan cookbook. Or to even bother looking at recipes online. So, what's for dinner? Jane's been on strike, it's way too hot to be slaving away over a stove for dinner. So, she's been making some delicious salads.

We've had tomato salad and cucumber salad. Jane will be posting some of her own vegan recipes once she feels she's got the swing of things. There's green salad for lunch and dinner every day too.

Last night we had toasted bagels with soy cream cheese and vegan salami. Condiments: onions, sliced tomatoes and pickled okra. That's right, pickled okra. (They taste like pickles, surprise!) Of course, there was a green salad with that. Yummy.

Lane